1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sectioning instrument for fabricating a section by sectioning an embedded block embedded with a living body sample sampled from the human body, an experimental animal or the like and carrying the fabricated section to a next step.
2. Description of the Related Arts
In a related art, there is known a method of sectioning an embedded block embedded with a living body sample by an embedding medium to a section having a thickness as extremely thin as several μm, thereafter, observing a sample constituted by dissolving the embedding medium as one of methods of inspecting and observing the living body sample sampled from the human body, an experimental animal or the like. As details of a step of fabricating the section, a section having a thickness of about 3 through 5 μm is fabricated by fixing the embedded block to a sample base and moving a cutter by a predetermined moving speed. Further, the section fabricated in this way is caught by a slender string or the like to be taken out and is carried to successive steps of an elongating step, a drying step and the like. Therefore, in the related art, the step of taking out and carrying the fabricated section is carried out by manual operation since the section is extremely thin, and damage of curl, wrinkle, break or the like is liable to be brought about. On the other hand, for example, in a preclinical test, several hundreds pieces of the embedded blocks are fabricated per test, and several sheets of the sections are fabricated per the embedded block. Therefore, an operator needs to fabricate an enormous number of sheets of the sections to be carried to successive steps and the steps have been tried to be automated.
For example, there is proposed an apparatus including a cutter for sectioning an embedded block, a sample base fixed with the embedded block and moved reciprocally relative to the cutter, a tape having an adhering layer and extended between a supply roll and a collect roll above the sample base, and a press apparatus for pressing the tape to a surface of the embedded block above the embedded block (see, for example, JP-B-49-28711). According to the apparatus, the fabricated section is adhered to the tape to be able to be carried by pressing the tape to the surface of the embedded block by the press apparatus frontward from a cut blade of the cutter in sectioning the embedded block by the cutter.
Further, there is proposed a method of fabricating a section of charging an embedded block and a tape by charges having different polarities, bringing the tape into contact to be adhered to a sectioning start portion by reducing a tension exerted to the tape at an initial stage of sectioning, increasing the tension in the midst of sectioning, and separating the section adhered to the tape from a scoop face of a cutter (see, for example, Japanese Patent Publication No. 3560728).
However, according to both of the apparatus and the method according to Patent Reference 1 and Patent Reference 2, it is necessary to adhere the tape or adhere the tape by an electrostatic force by pressing the tape to the surface of the embedded block before being sliced by the cutter, there is a concern of deforming the surface of the embedded block by pressing the tape to the embedded block. That is, there poses a problem that the section cannot be fabricated accurately and by a uniform thickness by deforming the surface of the embedded block. Further, there poses a problem that the surface of the embedded block cannot be observed in fabricating the section since the sample embedded in the embedded block is brought into a state of being covered always by the tape or the cutter by disposing the tape upward from the embedded block.